Sunday, November 7, 2010

LHC

Hey science nerds, I've got more Large Hadron Collider News for you.

The Large Hadron Collider has been busy destroying protons by the billions. But now it's set to do something completely different: generate miniature Big Bangs.
Scientists and researchers at CERN in Geneva are gearing up to launch experiments that attempt to recreate, as accurately as possible, the conditions immediately after the Big Bang, Discovery News reports. That could shed light on a state of matter that hasn't existed in the known Universe for over 13.7 billion years.
Specifically, scientists are planning to begin shooting lead ions around the 17-mile-long LHC beginning later this month. The theory goes that when accelerated to relativistic speeds, and then collided head-on with protons in the other direction, the resulting energy explosion will cause the production of brand new particles, the report said. Call it E=mc squared in its purest form.

Science nerds like me are excited, more pieces of the universe puzzle are going to be solved but there is one thing I am worried about. When the real big bang occured, the entire universe experienced Planck temperatures for fractions of a second. What if the LHC creates near Planck temperatures? Everything on Earth will incinerate instantly and everybody will die.